1. Field of the Invention
This invention is related to a method and apparatus for drilling wells using a drill head assembly employing laser energy assemblies as cutters. More particularly, this invention relates to a method and apparatus for drilling wells which produces a well or borehole liner in situ as the drilling operation progresses, thereby enabling the elimination of drill casing liners employed in conventional drilling operations.
2. Description of Related Art
Traditional well drilling requires the use of drill casing liners when retrieving fluids such as oil to prevent the mixture of grains and particles with the fluid. These liners present an additional financial cost to the well completion operation, in addition to the time required to put them in place. Another problem associated with traditional drilling occurs when water is encountered in the formations being drilled. Keeping this water out of the well and preventing it from mixing with the oil can be a significant problem.
The use of lasers for the purpose of producing boreholes to enable the extraction of liquid and gaseous fuels from underground formations is well-known in the art. U.S. Pat. No. 4,066,138 to Salisbury et al. teaches an earth boring apparatus mounted above ground that directs an annulus of high powered laser energy downwardly for boring a cylindrical hole by fusing successive annular regions of the stratum to be penetrated at a power level that shatters and self-ejects successive cores from the hole.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,282,940 to Salisbury et al. teaches an apparatus for perforating oil and gas wells. Using this method, a high-powered coherent light beam is axially directed along the borehole to a predetermined depth and deflected along a beam axis. The beam is focused to concentrate at each of a plurality of spaced focal points along the deflected beam. This, in turn, is said to provide a significant increase in the distance that calculated oil or gas bearing formations can be perforated, thereby increasing the yield by more conventional means.
The use of lasers for drilling is also taught by U.S. Pat. No. 4,113,036 to Stout in which underground boreholes are drilled through a formation from a plurality of vertical boreholes by use of laser beams to form a subsurface, three-dimensional bore passage pattern for in situ preparation of fossil fuel deposits to be recovered and a laser beam is projected vertically through an angularly adjusted tubular housing inserted into each borehole from which a reflected drilling beam is laterally directed by an angularly adjusted reflector to form a bore passage; U.S. Pat. No. 3,871,485 to Keenan, Jr. in which a laser beam generator positioned in a wellhole is electrically connected to an inhole voltage generator actuated by drilling mud or other liquid passing through a laser beam housing connected to the drill string and a reflecting crystal for the laser beam is positioned within the laser beam housing to reflect the beam in an elliptical pattern across the formation to be penetrated; U.S. Pat. No. 4,090,572 to Welch in which a laser beam for drilling gas, oil or geothermal wells in geological formations and for “fracing” the pay zones of such wells to increase recovery is projected into a wellbore along a beam guide so as to make available laser energy adequate to melt or vaporize the formation under downhole conditions; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,107,936 to Foppe in which a gap defining the outer profile of a borehole is melted down and the drill core surrounded by this gap is extracted at intervals through the melting zone. None of these references describes ways in which the conventional drill casing liner can be eliminated.